"Wall," sez I, "it would look as well agin in him to show a good road--a
good country road, that one could go over in the spring of the year
without wishin' to do as Job did--curse God and die."
Sez Josiah, "Job didn't do that; his wife wanted him to, and he refused;
men hain't profane naterally."
"Josiah Allen," sez I, "the language you have used over that Jonesville
road in muddy times has been enough to chill the blood in my veins. Tell
me that men hain't profane!"
"Not naterally, I said; biles and country roads is enough to make Job
and me swear." And he looked gloomy as he thought of the stretch from
Grout Hozletons to Jonesville, and how it looked from March till June.
"Wall," sez I, "less get our minds off on't," and I hurried him on to
look at the Austrian exhibit, and the Alps seemed to git his mind off
some.
There they wuz. There was the Alps, with a railroad in the foreground;
then the ship of the Invincible Armada, in the Madrid exhibit, seemed to
take up his mind; and all of the guns, from the fifteenth century on to
our day; and the Spanish collection of models of block-houses, forts,
castles, towers, and so forth.
In the middle of the main buildin' stood two big masts fifty feet
high--one of our own day, with every modern convenience; the other like
them masts on them ships of Columbus.
I hope our sails will waft on the ship of our country to as great a
success as Columbuses did. Mebby it will; I hope so.
Wall, after we left the Transportation Buildin', sez Josiah, "I am dead
sick of grandeur, and palaces 30 and 40 acres big, and gildin', and
arches, and pillars, and iron."
Sez he, "I would give a cent this minute to see our sugar house, and if
I could see Sam Widrig's hovel, where he keeps his sheep, and our old
log milk house, I'd be willin' to give a dollar bill."
"Wall," sez I, in a kinder low voice, for I didn't want it to git out--I
felt that I would ruther lose no end of comfort than to hurt the
Christopher Columbus World's Fair's feelin's--
I whispered, "I feel jest exactly as you do. And," sez I, "less go and
find a cabin and some huts if we can, and a board."
So we, havin' been told before where we should find these, wended our
way to the Esquimo village, and lo! there wuz a big board fence round
it.
And Josiah went up and laid his hand on them good hemlock boards
lovin'ly, and sez he, "It looks good enough to eat." I could hardly
withdraw him from it--he clung to it like a brother.
[Illustration: "It looks good enough to eat."]
Wall, inside that board fence wuz a number of cabins or huts, containin'
some of 'em a hide bag or a bed, a dog sled with some strips of tin for
a harness, and some plain tables, white as snow in some huts, and in
some as black as dirt could make 'em.
There wuz about fifty or sixty males and females and children there, and
one on 'em, a little bit of a baby, born right there on the Fair ground.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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